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Verner dead, her father absent; she had arrived to find that no provision had been made for her by Mr. Verner's will, as the widow of Frederick Massingbird. Frederick's having succeeded to the inheritance debarred her even of the five hundred pounds. It is true there would be the rents, received for the short time it had been his.
Lionel and John Massingbird had dined alone, and now sat together at the open window, in the soft May twilight. A small table was at John's elbow; a bottle of rum, and a jar of tobacco, water and a glass being on it, ready to his hand.
The clothes looked dark, and the man were as tall as the gentlemen, or as Calves." "Calves?" echoed Mr. Verner, puzzled. John Massingbird broke into an involuntary smile. He knew that their tall footman, Bennet, was universally styled "Calves" in the village. Dan Duff probably believed it to be his registered name. But Frederick Massingbird was looking dark and threatening.
"How far was Frederick implicated?" he asked in a low tone. "Did he did he put her into the pond?" "No!" burst forth John Massingbird, with a vehemence that sent the ashes of his pipe flying. "Fred would not be guilty of such a crime as that, any more than you or I would. He had he had made vows to the girl, and broken them; and that was the extent of it.
"What has unhidden it?" demanded Mr. Massingbird in a half-satirical tone, as if he doubted the truth of the information. "An explosion did that. Cheese got meddling with dangerous substances, and there was a blow-up. The bureau was thrown down and broken, and the codicil was dislodged. To talk of it, it sounds like an old stage trick." "Did Cheese blow himself up?" asked John Massingbird. "Yes.
She keeps up the grief, if you can understand it, Dr. West. Not a day passes, but she breaks into lamentations over the loss, complaining loudly and bitterly. Whether her health would not equally have failed at Verner's Pride, I am unable to say. I think it would." "John Massingbird, under the circumstances, ought to give it up to you. It is rightfully yours.
Roy was not a particularly reliable person; but Tynn could not doubt that this was true. It was the most feasible solution of the ghost story agitating Deerham; the only solution of it, Tynn grew to think. If Frederick Massingbird Tynn's reflections came to a halt.
The door had opened, and John Massingbird appeared, marshalling in Dinah Roy. Dinah looked fit to die, with her ashy face and her trembling frame. "Why, what is the matter?" exclaimed Mr. Verner. The woman burst into tears. "Oh, sir, I don't know nothing of it; I protest I don't," she uttered. "I declare that I never set eyes on Rachel Frost this blessed night."
Tynn declared, to as many people as she dared, that she prayed every night on her bended knees for Mr. Massingbird's departure, before the furniture should be quite ruined, or they burned in their beds. Mr. Massingbird was not going alone. Luke Roy was returning with him.
"Were I a rich man, able to rent Verner's Pride from John Massingbird, I might ask him to let it me, if it would gratify Sibylla. But, to return there as its master, on sufferance, liable to be expelled again at any moment never! John Massingbird holds the right to Verner's Pride, and he will exercise it, for me."
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